Saturday, November 14, 2015

Brad Torgersen wants to fight SJWs, but he is unnecessarily leery of certain tactics in a discussion of a Kate the Impaler post at the Mad Genius Club:

The reason they “win” right now, is because they rely completely on civilized people being too polite to tell them all to fuck off. Over the next twenty years, civilized folk may decide they’ve had enough, and then we’ll send the gerbils packing. The pendulum won’t stay stuck in one position forever. The trick is to not become them in the process of fighting them — which is a very tough chore. The values of the Enlightenment — also known as actual liberalism — don’t have to be destroyed in our zeal to see the gerbils run out of our institutions and our seats of power.

Right now those Enlightenment values only come into play to protect SJW protests and safe spaces. They do not do anything for the college presidents that have failed to confess and apologize for their white privilege to these cultural revolutionaries.

To which Jeffro Johnson replies:

Actual liberalism is done. It’s gone. Very few people under thirty even believe in the principles of free expression. We’ve been conceding our culture without a fight for decades while behaving as if that makes us better than the barbarians. It doesn’t.

In my opinion, Jeffro has the right of it. How are we going to “become them” when we don’t subscribe to their ideals? George Patton didn’t become a Nazi or even a German by adopting maneuever warfare tactics and using them against the Wehrmacht. The Mossad didn’t become terrorists by adopting assassination tactics against the PLO.

To claim that we can become like them by virtue of utilizing their tactics is a fundamental category error. Tactics are not strategy, grand strategy, objectives, or ideals.

They are not SJWs because of their behavior. They are SJWs because they subscribe to the totalitarian dream of social justice convergence.

112 Comments:

A few cherished friends of mine keep harping on "we mustn't descend to their level" when all I can advice is, metaphorically speaking, "get on your armor, grab a sword, and start fighting, you fags!" Sweet Christ, have we white men degenerated so much since Medieval times?

Battled with an SJW awhile back remembering just this lesson. We had been talking about the bible and I quoted our LORD "Well Jesus said..." to which the response was "So now your Jesus?!?" This of course made no sense and was the last time I tried logic or reason.

Next chess move by me - "Why do you hate Jews so much?" Her - "huh?" Me - "Jesus was a jew you must be a real Nazi to want to kill them all do you also hate black people?". I found that simply making incredibly ridiculous accusations put her down and kept her down - it was great. I didn't even have to think about any arguments or make any logical sense I just made stupid unsubstantiated accusations based on whatever she happened to be talking about at the time.

There are people who seem to think that fighting is not civilized. Well just how did we get civilization? We FOUGHT for it. And you must fight to defend it. Saying that any tactic used to defend civilization in a fight is 'uncivilized' is illogical.The benefits of civilization are for those who are civilized and behave as such. When you are fighting the uncivilized masses, you use whatever it takes to WIN. Or you will lose your 'civilization' to the barbarians.It's like a knife fighter taking on a guy with a gun, and they guy with the gun puts it down, so as to 'be fair'. And then promptly gets killed for his nonsensical behavior.

a hundred million self righteous sermons later its all still just sewn fig leaves.Not every muslim is violent or militant; but by virtue of their creed every muslim is stupid.If you love someone you examine their belief system/ the specific details, and do them the honour of telling them that they are full of .............. ; but you don't go on doing it forever. There's an end. You cast them adrift. defund, disenfranchise. Recover your posture and keep building things worth defending. IMO>its all Jesus.

Personally I'm more afraid of not "sinking to their level" than I am of sinking to it. I'd rather be a free man who fights dirty than a civilized slave, so if you force me to choose, don't expect much restraint.

Virtue Signalling by the SJWs: "We must destroy anyone who harbors bad thoughts!"

Virtue signalling by those fighting the SJWs: "We must not stoop to their level!"

And yet, by Virtue Signalling, the SJW fighter HAS stooped to their level. By prioritizing the appearance of virtue as the highest good. Stop worrying about how good you look or how you'll appear to others and get to the task of DOING good...

@ Remo - Vile Faceless Minion #99: I found that simply making incredibly ridiculous accusations put her down and kept her down - it was great. I didn't even have to think about any arguments or make any logical sense I just made stupid unsubstantiated accusations based on whatever she happened to be talking about at the time.

Yes! Rhetoric is easy and fun! Next time, if there isn't an audience, don't bother since you won't change her stupid mind. If there is an audience, then you also want to look good.

So, when you have her off-balance, hit her with a pseudo-concession that reinforces your point and makes her look bad. For example, "I know you didn't literally mean that I'm Jesus" -- she did, but she can't say so after this -- "but you made it sound like a bad thing." What can she say after that -- that she did mean it as a bad thing??

I understand when I hear that line of thought, not to become like them. Or even (sometimes) that it won't work (if I still hold that academia is not salvageable as is). Much of that comes from a fear of even trying. I have never actually seen it, but I am told that if predators, from feral dogs to wolves, get their teeth on sheep, the sheep under attack will just stand there as it is being vivisected by tooth and claw. Bleating, to be sure, while it can. But neither trying to escape, resist, or fight back. That is what such people remind me.

I think to what Christ suggested, though too. The meek shall inherit the earth. And other things mentioned in there, such as that the lions will lie down with the sheep. Of course, that latter has everything to do with lions and almost nothing to do with sheep. Which, after all, actually has control... choice? Especially, as I have noted, that such animals don't necessarily flee. For my part, I think I will let them have the earth. I don't think it is worth having. I just mean... there is a place for such, but it shouldn't be in leadership, or even considered by leadership. Keep the women, children, and a few others safe, but don't ask them HOW to keep them safe. That's like asking a woman how to treat a lady. Don't, just... don't.

Enlightenment values? If someone is advocating Enlightenment values, that person is suspect. The Enlightenment was the original SJW lovefest. "We are superior. We've progressed beyond everyone who's ever come before us." The Enlightenment is what gave us the French Revolution. It saw high-minded people rewriting the past to confirm their own superiority. The flat-earth theory? That was an Enlightenment creation. Nobody in medieval or Renaissance Europe believed that. Nobody from the classical world believed that. It's hard to find many civilizations who advanced enough to leave us writing who thought the Earth was flat. But SJWs always lie. They always project. Back then, they desperately needed to show that their rejection of everything religious, Medieval, and Renaissance was "progress," and so they concocted garbage like flat-earth theory to make it stick.

If you're defending the Enlightenment, you're only a small hop, skip, twist, and jump through Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger away from contemporary SJWs. You're defending the intellectual tradition that birthed this modern cancer, and I have to wonder if you're not far away from goose-stepping along with them because, intellectually, you're much closer to modern SJWs than you are to me.

Yes, that's one of the most overplayed comic book tropes there is. Fighting evil doesn't give you evil cooties, like you're in a bad superhero movie reboot. And they know that -- most people who cite this trope also believe that an entire generation of men went overseas to fight the greatest evil of all time in WWII, adopting and even surpassing the enemy's evil tactics, then came home and became "the Greatest Generation," coddling their kids and throwing their efforts into public works.

Come to think of it, next time someone pulls this trope on me, I'll just say, "Why do you hate veterans?" After all, if this trope is true, then who should be more suspect than a man who spent time actually killing people in battle?

@13 Steve: I dunno. I've been to Midieval Times. Yeah, it's aimed at overweight 18-year old girls, the fighting is very fakey, and they literally throw the food at you. But I'm not sure that a restaurant with horses is a sign of degeneracy.

In other comments, Paul Tibbetts was a very serious guy. With him I would not fuck.

Yes, I don't want to go all Wheeler on the thread, but I do think that part of understanding this stuff well enough to combat it (on a strategic level, anyway) is coming to realize that the Enlightenment wasn't the emergence of sunshine and rainbows out of a previous utter darkness that we've been taught it was. You can believe that it contained some good things, even some necessary things, while also understanding that inherent in those were some very bad things, which were the seeds for modern liberalism (and of course it had seeds of its own).

If you think that modern liberalism is contrary to the Enlightenment and came from 1960s flower children or from the Bolsheviks or somewhere else, then you've got some of the pieces of the puzzle in the wrong places, and your vision of the big picture will be fuzzy. Fuzzy vision makes it hard to spot the target clearly and do strategy.

For this kind of thing I go back to Paul's rule of conscience, a la Romans 14. My understanding of the passage is that if you convince someone reasonably that what they had thought was wrong (i.e. using the same tactics as your opponent) is actually ok (there's no Bible clearly against it, it doesn't obviously violate any of God's commands, etc), and their conscience can be clean in doing it, then there's no issue. But if you press someone to do something that they feel wrong doing and they give in while still feeling uncomfortable about it, then you're causing them to sin.

Brad sounds like a good man who still feels uncomfortable on this front; I think presenting the logic and letting him wrestle through it himself is exactly the right approach.

Litany of HumilityO Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me.From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being loved, deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being extolled, deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being honored, deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being praised, deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being preferred to others, deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being consulted, deliver me, Jesus.From the desire of being approved, deliver me, Jesus.From the fear of being humiliated, deliver me, Jesus.From the fear of being despised, deliver me, Jesus.From the fear of suffering rebukes, deliver me, Jesus.From the fear of being calumniated, deliver me, Jesus.From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, Jesus.From the fear of being ridiculed, deliver me, Jesus.From the fear of being wronged, deliver me, Jesus.From the fear of being suspected, deliver me, Jesus.

Initially, I had a similar view to Brad's; I even feared that Vox and his tactics would scare away reasonable moderates. The follies of youth, right there. Through it all, the Puppies, Gamergate, every other SJW fit, the moderates (even "our" moderates) couldn't wait to stab us in the back. I'm not sure why -- I don't understand the appeal of a vocal minority of whiners.

Oddly enough, I never applied that foolish fear to politics -- I always understood that moderates were just waiting for their chance to shiv conservatives or libertarians and take away freedom (or spend our money, which is also taking our freedom). Somehow I had blinders when it came to these ridiculous "social justice" moderates. I figured they were just disinterested or unaware.

Now?

Burn and salt their metaphorical fields, because if anyone isn't aware by now they're not worth the effort. You can't have missed GG, and SP/RP, and Mizzou, and Yale. If you've seen the things the Literally Who snuffleupagus herd has orchestrated and you're still a "moderate" then you're just a fucking idiot or a liar, and it doesn't really matter which. I'm not accusing Brad of that -- he's like I was, still seeing this as a PR battle.

The PR battle is over, and the people controlling the media won that by presenting us as racist troglodytes.

I remember The X-Men had this dynamic between white knight Cyclops admonishing Wolverine not to be harsh, lest they stoop to the villains' levels. I agreed with this on some level, then grew up. Cyclops is a pussy. Wolverine was the go-to guy who did what needed to be done.

I think Nietzsche. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche offers a list of some 185 aphorisms. Most of these have been generally forgotten, but one has became very popular, seeping through the mainstream culture until pretty much everyone has heard it in some form or another:

"146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee."

It's easy to see why this quote caught on. The idea of a hero who fights against monsters only to become one himself is appealing for its drama and tragedy. Also the second sentence has the quality of sounding profound and deep, even though it's incoherent.

I think it's been quoted and used so much by now that a lot of people accept it as a truism of history or psychology, never thinking to ask where it came from or whether it even makes sense.

@37 Krul, thank you, that's exactly it. Many of the comic writers were into Nietzsche. I agree, many like it for it's very dark, very German tragi-drama inherent in the aphorism...but to find truth in it is is silly.

Nietzsche was mostly a smart, whiny gamma annoyed at his lot in life and tried to be deep to score points socially. Again, it's why I think so many geeks and dorks like him, they relate. Not saying he didn't get a few things right, but it's silly not to note how much he got wrong and how much was just babbling.

We're dealing with a low-grade political-religion death-cult. Like most cults the membership is full of troubled low IQ mentally disordered fanatics. The main dogma of the cult is the fanatical belief that a man-made political egalitarian "heaven on earth" will arise once the existing order/civilization is destroyed.

Naturally, the crony billionaire elites who fund, promote and manipulate the SJW cult have their own agenda. Their agenda is the road back to serfdom for the masses via the destruction of the middle-class (i.e. "the bourgeoisie"), world depopulation and a return to a neo-feudalistic system worldwide.

@3 Remo - Vile Faceless Minion #99 I didn't even have to think about any arguments or make any logical sense I just made stupid unsubstantiated accusations based on whatever she happened to be talking about at the time.---

I've been puzzling over the left Islam informal alliance for a while. I saw the left dismantle the political Catholicism in Quebec very effectively, and wondered where they were now.

There are lots of layers, but one thing stand out. They are both looking for submission. Islamist are fine with journalism as long as it doesn't insult the prophet. Say what we tell you and you can live. Gay marriage is about being able to celebrate while being served by vanquished foes, the Christian photographer, baker and florist.

It is not enough to build shower and bathroom facilities for the delusional who don't know their gender, you must be forced to disrobe before them to demonstrate acceptance.

There are three choices; submit, chase them out with a stick, or burn the thing down.

We have been conditioned to submit. The goal isn't willing submission, but domination, and the lines will be moved until you are dominated.

To argue is to accept the premise. No, I will not respect your pedophilia prophet, no I will not accept your gender dysphoria as a basis for discussion. No, reaching for a stick.

Nietzsche has certainly been important in pushing the idea forward, along with the intellectual underpinning for the very notion of a superhero (some people are Übermensch, who can disregard the law because of their exceptional ability to pull society forward) and a lot to do with master-slave (powerful-oppressed, etc.) dichotomies.

But the notion of becoming the monster definitely has earlier roots in Romanticism. I can see Frankenstein having elements of this, especially in the second half of the story.

@38 Durandel Almiras November 14, 2015 9:35 AM@37 Krul, thank you, that's exactly it. Many of the comic writers were into Nietzsche. I agree, many like it for it's very dark, very German tragi-drama inherent in the aphorism...but to find truth in it is is silly. ---

But remember, SJWs are not logical, so something illogical is like nectar of the gods to them. That's why this thing is so common, it lets them feel smug and super smart compared to normal folks and common sense.

Probably off-topic, my apologies, delete if it requires it. BUT HOW ABOUT A TARGET TO ATTACK?given the news, it might be perfect timing to jump in and cluster-f... the little shits at Vanderbilt College that just a a day ago made a SJW move:http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/13/vanderbilt-students-move-to-oust-professor-who-suggested-radical-islam-might-be-a-problem/

The West is controlled and run by crony billionaire elites. These elites use the Mohammadians, the SJWs, the immigrants, etc. as weapons/storm-troopers against native populations as a means of intimidation and control. The elites are at war with humanity and their first target - but not last - is the middle-class.

Your financial independence in any form - be it your ability to accumulate capital or use physical cash in a transaction - is a threat to their control.

Question: so are there any tactics sufficiently dirty that it becomes un-Christian to engage in them? Tactics are not strategy, granted, but I don't suppose you mean that as a blanket defense. Or is it simply that explaining the limits of your arsenal is foolish?

So, case in point, I am glad, on balance, that Catholic Spain had sufficient balls to throw off the Moorish invaders - an ideological as well as military campaign in which the Jesuits played an important role. I am less excited about their murder of Protestants, which seems to have been motivated by a similar pursuit of ideological purity.

Or is it simply that explaining the limits of your arsenal is foolish?

Yes. That's why I am so harsh on moderates who try to speech-police, tone-police, and tactics-police others IN PUBLIC. The mere fact that they are willing to do so in sight and sound of the enemy means they cannot be trusted in any way. They are not actually on our side.

The main target is the Mass Media. The Mass Media is the command and control of the enemy. The target has been identified and acquired. Delegitimize the mainstream news media, develop alternative news sources, replace the major publishing houses, promote alternatives to government education, relentlessly attack the crony fiat monetary system, etc.

The counter-offensive is already in progress and we're seeing breakthroughs on all fronts. That's why the enemy is becoming so desperate and hysterical and that's why he's rushing his plans.

The Mass Media is a fighting division. Academia is command and control, it's where the "journalists" are trained. However, the same offensive can be used against both at the same time, as the narrative is their weapon.

The issue here is not use of particular underhanded tactics. What is being objected to is not the tactics but the use of violence. In this barbarians, which are prone to violence, always have the advantage over civil societies which by their nature are civil, meaning that they habitually abjure the use of violence within their own society. What the Left has attempted to do is convince the West that for Western civilization violence is always and everywhere wrong. The only way to defeat barbarism is with violence, and civilized societies typically recruit and train groups of men (soldiers, police) in the use of violence on civilization's behalf. Those that fail to do so perish. The Left has perfected the barbarous practice of violence while pretending to still be members of civil society and entitled to its protections. Barbarian is as barbarian does. The West needs to learn to view these barbarians as such, and feel free to unleash commensurate violence upon them without remorse.

It's true, you do become them, if the only about them you object to is their tactics.

If you're both, let's say, Catholics, and you both aim to convert the heathen, but you want to do it by persuasion and Otho wants to convert by the sword, you will become like Otho when you try to convert Otho by the sword.

But when the aims are different, and the values are different, that doesn't happen. As a real life example, The US has become what the USSR was, not because we adopted the same methods they used (we haven't yet) but because we are both run by monomaniacal Communist Jews who want to enslave everyone.

@9 And yet, by Virtue Signalling, the SJW fighter HAS stooped to their level. By prioritizing the appearance of virtue as the highest good. Stop worrying about how good you look or how you'll appear to others and get to the task of DOING good...

Absolutely correct. The emphasized shows a common, almost subconscious, fallacy. Take for example, the issue of illegal immigration -- now imagine the reaction to a [southern border-state] governor using military force to secure their borders. How many people would consider this to be "sinking to their level", or worse? And yet it is a perfectly legal and legitimate response.* This contrasts very well with the Illegal immigrant who breaks the law by his immigration, and with the politician who prevents the upholding of the law as a means to address the situation.

For added effect, imagine the above governor loudly, publicly demanding federal support under the constitution's Art. 4, Sec 4, which would require the federal government to help... there would be only three responses:1) The federal government assists the governor. (This is the least likely, considering how many open-borders politicians we have in congress and the executive.)2) The federal government does nothing. (This is the most likely, but would seriously harm the legitimacy of the federal government; it would show the federal/state relationship to be only one-way, perfectly illustrating that the federal government [believes that it] has no obligation to the states whatsoever.)3) The federal government acts against the state. (This is the most interesting, as it is definitionally Treason, giving aid to the enemies of that state. What is more interesting is that it's one thing that congress isn't protected from arrest.)

And all of the above is "playing by the rules" -- it's just far more vicious than most people's conditioning allows them to contemplate.

* e.g. TX Constitution -- Art 4, Sec. 7. COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF MILITARY FORCES; CALLING FORTH MILITIA.He shall be Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the State, except when they are called into actual service of the United States. He shall have power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions.

Why publicly pontificate on topics of which you know nothing? Everything you said is wrong. The one that jumped out as the most blatantly stupidly wrong took one mouse-click to google up its refutation:

"The flat Earth model is an archaic conception of the Earth's shape as a plane or disk. Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD) and China until the 17th century. That paradigm was also typically held in the aboriginal cultures of the Americas, and the notion of a flat Earth domed by the firmament in the shape of an inverted bowl is common in pre-scientific societies."

I'd rather be a free man who fights dirty than a civilized slave, so if you force me to choose, don't expect much restraint.

Back when I believed in equality I got jumped by 5 groids after using an ATM, on the sidewalk at the edge of the banks property. I was not smart enough to cross the street. I won, keeping my wallet and necklace only having a black eye from an attack that started with a sucker punch, but the groids told the cops I fought dirty. I have no idea how someone sucker punched in a 5-1 fight could possibly fight dirty, but CCTV footage was available.

The Mossad didn’t become terrorists by adopting assassination tactics against the PLO.

Nope the King David Hotel & Lincoln's assassination came before the PLO

TroperA has the right of it though I would add that the typical moderate has no stomach for a fight.

Its like when states can't do the death penalty because they can't buy the drugs. Don't they know there are charts with deadly drug interactions out there, or they could just bacon grease.

Where does this idea come from? Movies and comics? Certainly not from history.

A lot of conservatives who argue against using certain tactics are largely arguing in favor of dialectic over rhetoric even if they don't realize it. They make references to courtesy and civil society, and such, but at the heart of their beliefs is a conviction that disagreements should be resolved by reason and logic. They favor courtesy because it makes reason and logic easier.

Vox has largely convinced me that he's right, but it's only because I've read his dialectical arguments. As someone who very much prefers dialectic, I would have been completely unconvinced by the kind of rhetoric you all tend to use against these conservatives.

You all have so fallen in love with rhetoric that you have forgotten that there is sometimes a need for dialectic. When one of these conservatives makes such an argument and you respond by calling him a cuck or accusing him of virtue signalling or just saying contemptuously that he'd rather lose the war than soil his hands, you are throwing away the chance to gain an ally and unnecessarily creating an enemy. A man who is oriented towards dialectic will only respond negatively to such rhetoric.

There are good dialectical arguments in favor of Vox's tactics. Why don't you use them instead of resorting immediately to rhetorical attacks that are only going to make you another enemy?

"That's why I am so harsh on moderates who try to speech-police, tone-police, and tactics-police others IN PUBLIC. The mere fact that they are willing to do so in sight and sound of the enemy means they cannot be trusted in any way. They are not actually on our side."

It's important to distinguish between the moderates (ostensibly) on your side of a conflict and the great mass of men on no side at all, who may take a side when necessary but otherwise have other concerns.

Buzzardist can speak for himself, but the only thing I can see that he might have said differently was "Most - if not all of Medieval/Renaissance/Classical world did not believe in..." Or "The rest of the world, such as it was, which didn't contribute considerably to Western/modern advancements..."

Other than that, not seeing how anything you quoted negates his point.

As I understand it, you can't walk up to someone with dialectic and change his mind. No, not even the special snowflakes who think they are just too logical to be swayed by rhetoric. What actually happens is that someone starts to change his mind for rhetorical (emotional) reasons, and then he looks around for dialectic to explain it.

If I'm right, that means it can be useful to have dialectic handy, but you must start with rhetoric. And since most people can be convinced without any dialectic at all -- they'll do their own rationalizing -- rhetoric is where you should focus your efforts.

J van stry,I like the gun /knife analogy. My only point is that when it is possible and relatively safe to do so, it is more effective to shoot the knife fighter in the knees and elbows and then kick his teeth in until he genuinely changes or gets kicked to death. It helps convert the moderates once you see that you actually are very fair.... And will curb stomp the enemies who insist on being enemies. Especially if after they see you do that you ask them a very simple: whose side are you on? And remember, whatever you reply there are consequences. If he hesitates or hedges curb stomp him ruthlessly and immediately. The others will get the message faster.

It's important to distinguish between the moderates (ostensibly) on your side of a conflict and the great mass of men on no side at all, who may take a side when necessary but otherwise have other concerns.

No, it's not. The great mass of indifferent men don't criticize you. Because it's not necessary.

Vox has largely convinced me that he's right, but it's only because I've read his dialectical arguments. As someone who very much prefers dialectic, I would have been completely unconvinced by the kind of rhetoric you all tend to use against these conservatives.

Yes, and so what? When conservatives lead with rhetoric, you know they will not be convinced with dialectic. The minute some cucky conservatives starts in with the "hard-working immigrants seeking a better life" nonsense, you know dialectic is pointless.

They're fighting the same enemy, the Death Cult, you suicidal dipshit. Attacking one's allies (even if you have some disagreements) while defending one's enemies is a trait of moderates and SJWs. Are you one?

"The flat-earth theory? That was an Enlightenment creation... Nobody from the classical world believed that."

This is a blatantly, stupidly wrong thing to say. Mealy-mouthed modifiers won't save it. It is nonsensical, untrue, and ridiculous from even a common-sense view. Arm-waving doesn't succor ahistorical twaddle.

"When conservatives lead with rhetoric, you know they will not be convinced with dialectic. The minute some cucky conservatives starts in with the "hard-working immigrants seeking a better life" nonsense, you know dialectic is pointless."

I've always been sympathetic to such immigrants. Still am, emotionally. But I've been convinced by dialectical arguments (before I ever visited this site) to oppose immigration because of the harm it does.

@Cail Corishev: "As I understand it, you can't walk up to someone with dialectic and change his mind. No, not even the special snowflakes who think they are just too logical to be swayed by rhetoric. What actually happens is that someone starts to change his mind for rhetorical (emotional) reasons, and then he looks around for dialectic to explain it."

You can't walk up to someone and change their mind, but when someone is really interested in knowing the truth rather than just in defending a position, dialectical can certainly change minds.

I can think of several times that I've changed my mind on very important topic where I really didn't want to but felt that the argument was too strong to ignore. What I have never done was change my mind when someone was calling me names like "special snowflake". When I've changed my mind on important beliefs it was always because of strong arguments given in a fair and passionless form.

"Nobody in medieval or Renaissance Europe believed that. Nobody from the classical world believed that. It's hard to find many civilizations who advanced enough to leave us writing who thought the Earth was flat."

And boom! The wisdom of the ages. He are Groot, quote from single mouse-click, you like American:

"Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD) and China until the 17th century. That paradigm was also typically held in the aboriginal cultures of the Americas..."

Between the SS benefits and Maypo, you cans parse the rhetoric real good there, chief.

@91. kh123:"He are Groot, quote from single mouse-click, you like American:"

Gibberish is not win. On what planet does random noise gain a point?

"Between the SS benefits and Maypo, you cans parse the rhetoric real good there, chief."

Whatever language this is, spazzing out does not own the thread. Wipe the drool from your chin, empty the drool cup, then try again. You are funny, kh123, but you convince no one with gibberish. Spergie spasms are just pathetic. Have you nothing? You are a sad, strange little man, and you have my pity.

"As I understand it, you can't walk up to someone with dialectic and change his mind. No, not even the special snowflakes who think they are just too logical to be swayed by rhetoric. What actually happens is that someone starts to change his mind for rhetorical (emotional) reasons, and then he looks around for dialectic to explain it.

If I'm right, that means it can be useful to have dialectic handy, but you must start with rhetoric. And since most people can be convinced without any dialectic at all -- they'll do their own rationalizing -- rhetoric is where you should focus your efforts."

As a general note, if I'm commenting here, it's safe to assume I'm agreeing with you on the point in question unless I specifically state otherwise, which should be rare. I generally defer to the authority of a blog's author.

"I can think of several times that I've changed my mind on very important topic where I really didn't want to but felt that the argument was too strong to ignore."

Then you've cultivated a rare humility. This is another case, as you've conceded your original point by your use of the word "feel." Not all rhetoric engages the passions, but no dialectic does.

"What I have never done was change my mind when someone was calling me names like "special snowflake". When I've changed my mind on important beliefs it was always because of strong arguments given in a fair and passionless form."

Passion DNE rhetoric. A passionless form is merely manly, not inherently dialectical. The question is what led you to engage those strong arguments in the first place. Truth is a necessary but insufficient condition.

I don't know who you're thinking of, generically named kh123, but I've made no references to the Beatles, I'm nowhere near SS benefits, and I'd never heard of Maypo until you spurred me to google it. No matter how much smarter I am than you, that doesn't make me your professor. It's hilarious that you keep kicking that grass, but I'm over here.

So you're tripling down in your White Knighting by insisting that the Enlightenment invented the Flat Earth theory? It was a blatantly, stupidly wrong claim by the fair maiden you're rescuing, but I'm afraid your passionate defense means that you're a blatantly stupid person.

Or, in case you're still drunk: "He are kh123, Earth are flat, you like grass:"

Given your performance here, what other choice was there. Unless you were blowing smoke about your age several threads back, or now, I am dealing with someone whose rabbit ears are set to VH1. Don't shoot the translator for attempting to bridge the language barrier.

Or the reading comprehension barrier, as may be the case:

"So you're tripling down in your White Knighting by insisting that the Enlightenment invented the Flat Earth theory?"

Remember when "SJW's always lie" was taken to task by the dialectic crowd here. Remember how that turned out? How the train was just fine?

"But, but, see... there were civilizations who believed flat earth. And the Greeks! See! Disqualify! ..."

Yes Virginia, we know. Go back and reread the original statement at @23.

Ah, drunk again. Whoever you're spergily obsessing about, I have not commented on my age, except to inform you that your guess was wrong. But who needs facts? Or logic? Or a prefrontal cortex in operating order? You are comical, I'll grant you that. It's like a drunken fat guy pissing on his own car, giggling irrepressibly about his wit. How fat are you? When's the last time you saw your own dick?

Obviously, I can't prove it, but 1. I'm in a better position to describe my own internal mental processes than you are, and 2. Your generalization from a few observations of individuals to all of humanity without exception is a bit ambitious.

@96: "Passion DNE rhetoric. A passionless form is merely manly, not inherently dialectical. The question is what led you to engage those strong arguments in the first place. Truth is a necessary but insufficient condition."

I was raised as a young-earth creationist and I occasionally argued with evolutionists. I was reading up on geology and paleontology primarily to avoid the common point made by my opponents that I was ignorant of the current scientific theories. I was forced, very grudgingly, to accept that radiological dating does in fact pretty much blow the young earth theory away. Sure, I could have continued to maintain the theory with some extraordinary hypotheses, but I didn't feel it would be intellectually honest to do so. I'm still very much an evolution skeptic but I no longer believe in a young earth.

I think a lot of young people are similarly persuaded to accept the full Darwinian theory by the (one-sided and often deceptive) evidence that they are given in high school. It's entirely too facile to claim that it's "really" social pressure that get's all of them. Sure, I agree that social pressure is the main factor for some of them, and may be a contributing factor for many of them, but it's the actual evidence that is really damaging to their previous faith.

"No, you f*cking idiot! You see, Ezra Klein, see, his timeline was correct when he mentioned Assad opened fire on the rebels. And, and, the Huffington Post. Do they ALWAYS LIE? About everything? Even Vox worked for the papers at one point. DOES HE LIE??? ..."

Do me a favor. First, stop spazzing out. You don't need to post three comments in reply to every one of mine. Get a hold of your emotions, unless you actually are a thirteen-year-old girl.

Second, try to make statements that are more coherent, i.e., make sense. Circling the gibberish drain only casts doubt on your intellect. Barfing up half-digested Vox Day quotes irrelevantly doesn't indicate an efficient ability to digest (since you're not so bright, digestion here is a metaphor for understanding).

So, 1. get a grip, and 2. engage your brain. I'd appreciate it.

Your damsel @23 stated: "The flat-earth theory? That was an Enlightenment creation." He stated it straightforwardly with some emphasis. He then repeated it, with examples. Its meaning doesn't change if he stated it rhetorically, dialectically, umbilically, or pterodactylly. This was your tenth hysterical comment defending his idiotic claim. You are an idiot.